GoatFish wrote:Yes, that is true... so I'm picking that Andy is a good instructor?

It's probably a bit immodest for me to answer that....

The truth is, though, that I am a good instructor sometimes.

If you want to do a course that I am really excited about, then that helps. If you want to do a Fish ID course..... well, I certainly wouldn't be a good instructor.

But personality and attitude are also important. I'm not very good at, for example, "being nice" about how a student does. All feedback and criticism should follow the shyte sandwich rule, something positive followed by the bad, then something good to end. Problem is I like thin bread! I can be overly blunt, which for some people is difficult to deal with... other people like the fact that I get straight to the point.

So I don't think there's such a thing as a universal good instructor, it's more about whether an instructor is good for you. That's why it's vital to take time to talk to instructors first before signing up for a course.

Agreed. Talk to Andy and ask him what diving he does and what he thinks is important about the course you are interested in doing. Make sure that he's a good fit for you.

Andy is a professional instructor and would enjoy the oppertunity to discuss the value you can expect to get from one of his courses. Try asking me someday what you can expect if you get into a rebreather and I would expect you'll get a similar level of enthusiasm and passion. (set aside at least an hour ).

At the end of the day, the responsibility for learning rests with the student. That job starts by selecting the correct instructor for you. A good instructor will facilitate your learning... they won't do it for you.

This is a sport that we can be passionate about. And we should enjoy it too, even (especially) the training.

EDIT: I wrote a big thesis with this post, but decided that after the 1,000+ odd words - I had completely forgotton what the point was that I had to make.Maybe there should be a Course before Open Water that teaches prospective Students how to get the best out of the Dive Industry. Maybe it can incorporate all the different facets of diving way beyond just a diagram of what Certs you can attain. What different Companies are out there and what they have to offer in different fields of Diving. This will be very helpful as a lot of Dive Students are too young to attend Uni and learn the technique of Research and a lot of people don't ever go to Uni (Not that I'm saying only Uni people know how to research). The lack of Prep or Whats on Offer for Beginners, not just in the Dive Industry, is appalling. Luckily we do have Forums such as these which do help (greatly!) these days for many people in many industries around the world. There is a Dive Expo (OzTek), but even that is limited to some degree.I'm sure there's more to say on this.

Paul wrote:Andy is a professional instructor and would enjoy the oppertunity to discuss the value you can expect to get from one of his courses.

And as well as talking about, we could just go diving!!

Sometimes an in-water appraisal is a good way to get a feel of what best suits a diver's needs as well.

In terms of value, and I'm possibly a few days premature as the details aren't on our website yet, but we now offer a money back satisfaction guarantee on all of our certification courses.

Long story short, if at any time in the first two sessions of the course a diver decides that the course isn't what they thought it was, or there is a disconnect between the instructor and the diver - or the diver just decides they don't want to do it. We will give a full refund of the tuition costs in exchange for an honest reason why - we'd much rather someone went "this course is ....." than make something up about their grandmother's funeral as it gives us an opportunity to take that feedback and improve our courses and the way we teach.

Just a word about what we mean by "tuition costs"... this would essentially be course cost with any direct expenses deducted. So for example, if there was a manual that we'd had to pay for, the diver keeps the manual but the cost of it isn't refunded.

Bottom line, then, is that our courses are now pretty much zero risk to a diver - they have nothing to lose. How cool is that? Details should be on the website in the next week, so people can go through the small print at their leisure.

I'm fairly certain we are the only people in New Zealand who offer this - we do it because we stand 100% behind the courses we teach and are truly passionate about them.

The flip side, though, is that we offer only a small number of courses which are the ones that we think we can truly add value to.

In the context of this thread, we don't offer Deep courses. The three courses that we would put up in place would be the Self Reliant Diver course, the TDI Advanced Nitrox & Decompression Procedures course.... or the GUE Rec 3 that we can now offer. I'm quite happy to discuss any of these courses with you, GoatFish. If you decided that you did want to do a Deep course, there are a number of people we'd happily refer you do in order to get the right course for you. Drop me a PM if you wanted to have a chat.

It all sounds fair enough to me Andy, in fact it sounds pretty good - I like the idea that if I begin the course and I suddenly find it way outta my league (too mathematical just to make an example) ...then alls well that ends well. The 'distrust' of any course conducted by anyone 'out there' in the Industry is immense. Get on DiveOz and you'll hear everyone and anyone slag off PADI/SSI for starters.

Drip wrote:It all sounds fair enough to me Andy, in fact it sounds pretty good - I like the idea that if I begin the course and I suddenly find it way outta my league (too mathematical just to make an example) ...then alls well that ends well.

Well, you know where we are, Jase.

The 'distrust' of any course conducted by anyone 'out there' in the Industry is immense. Get on DiveOz and you'll hear everyone and anyone slag off PADI/SSI for starters.

Tell me about it. it certainly makes life difficult for us - our prices are higher than anyone elses, so when you smack against the cynical element there is no hope of gaining any traction. Our money-back deal will hopefully help us there.

In terms of value, and I'm possibly a few days premature as the details aren't on our website yet, but we now offer a money back satisfaction guarantee on all of our certification courses. [/quote]Wow!!! now thats a big claim to fame Andy!!! Mind you, having done the (odd) course with you, its pretty hard to not be satisfied with the amount of information thrown headlong at you. And the rest of the team too....

Sometimes I think I understand EVERYTHING ---- then I regain consciousness

Well done Andy and team it's awesome to see courses finally being sold they way they should be - If only you'd been around 10 years ago ! oh the heart ache and mis-spent dollars that would have been saved